Enrol What age is best to start lessons?

The earlier the better!

Early attendance to aquatic environments establishes them as safe, eliminating fear through repeated exposure.

From infancy, utilising bath time to introduce activities including gentle raining around the back of the head and ears, engaging with toys, colours, and song to reiterate water play as a positive experience.

Lessons can be engaged in from as soon as 6 months, infant classes can be accessed at most leisure centres and swim schools.

Ivanhoe Girls’ Aquatics entry age is 3 years, we are unable to schedule infant classes due to hosting a largely competitive focused program, which needs the water’s temperature to sit below 30 degrees Celsius.

We have two entry levels, Yellow and Blue.

Yellow is for students who are still working on establishing familiarity and confidence in water, working toward achieving the following skills:

• Submerse face with correct front float head position and goggles on
• Demonstrate breath control with bubbles
• Doggy paddle arms with kick and correct body position, 3m (no breath required)
• Introductory kick on a noodle with pointed toes
• Assisted back float
• Monkey crawl along pool edge to safety
• Demonstrate safe entry and exit.

Blue is for students whose focus is beginning to establish independent swimming and introductory strokes, they work toward achieving the following skills:

• Demonstrate safe entry and exit
• Blow bubbles (comfortably with face in water)
• Fully submerge and retrieve an object in waist deep water
• Kick on front and back with kickboard for 5m
• Demonstrate independent torpedo
• Introductory extended arm paddle
• Float on back and recover to standing
• Jump from pool edge into deep water (and return to edge)

For further assistance on how to determine your child’s level and for enrolment help, please don’t hesitate to contact us via email aquatics@ivanhoegirls.vic.edu.au